When Jane was young and desperate to escape her alcoholic mother, she would take refuge with her friend Ray. Ray's family would feed her but always send her back. Now as the country prepares to go to war in Iraq in 2003, journalist Jane is back home clearing her mother's house and following a lead about a man in Karachi who was seen being bundled into a private plane by masked men. The witness got the tail number, and as Ray is a plane-spotter, Jane hopes he can help her with her story.

Clare Bayley's thriller about British collusion in torture and US extraordinary-rendition flights is often gripping and always intelligent. It asks questions about the involvement of the secret services and the British government, and it confronts the all-too-human instinct to refuse to face the things that make us uncomfortable and scared. Did Ray's family turn a blind eye to what was really happening in Jane's house? Do UK newspapers only cover the stories that will boost sales? Would you prefer to believe your husband was a philanderer rather than a jihadist?

Unfortunately, Blue Sky is so narrative-heavy and clotted with information that it leaves little room for subtleties, or the emotional ambiguities that can lift a so-so play into a good one. It often feels quite earnest. Jane (cleverly played by Sarah Malin) is the stereotype of the hard-bitten female reporter who believes that, when it comes to getting the story, the means always justify the ends, even if those means include betraying someone's trust. Ray's daughter Ana, a media-studies student and blogger, is too convenient a character: her only purpose is to set up a tension between old journalism and the rise of the blogger. There is lots to interest us in this play, but it never truly flies.

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